Rams overwhelm Darnold, Vikings

Sam Darnold tried to step up in the pocket to find a receiver but there was nowhere to go. The blue and yellow wall that was the Rams’ defense closed too fast. Akhello Witherspoon got there first, knocking the the Vikings quarterback to the ground as the ball popped loose. Jared Verse scooped it up and the Rams faithful roared their approval in their adopted home of State Farm Stadium as the rookie ran untouched for a 57-yard touchdown. Rams QB Matthew Stafford was right there with them. “Our defense,” he said, “just went crazy.” The Rams — the football team, but especially their home city — has had a tough week as wildfires have decimated large portions of the metropolitan area. The Rams channeled all that sorrow and uncertainty into a dominant defensive performance, sacking Darnold an NFL playoff record-tying nine times to win 27-9 on Monday night in an NFC wild-card game that was moved from Southern California to Arizona due to the fires. Stafford threw two TD passes and the fourth-seeded Rams (11-7) drove for a TD on the opening drive and built a 10-0 lead by the end of the first quarter against the 14-win and No. 2 seed Vikings. The Rams’ next game will be on the East Coast against the second-seeded Eagles on Sunday.

Medvedev wrecks net camera in win

Daniil Medvedev used his racket to smash a tiny camera attached to the net at the Australian Open while he was trailing someone ranked 418th before eventually avoiding a monumental upset and winning 6-2, 4-6, 3-6, 6-1, 6-2 in the first round at Rod Laver Arena on Tuesday. The No. 5-seeded Medvedev earned the title at the 2021 U.S. Open and is a three-time runner-up at Melbourne Park, including a year ago, but was hardly playing his best in the second and third sets against Kasidit Samrej, a wild-card entry from Thailand making his Grand Slam debut. The camera-destroying racket swings happened in what would be the last game of the third set, which Samrej claimed to take a two-sets-to-one-lead in the best-of-five match. Medvedev’s display of anger came after he lost a 13-stroke point to trail 40-15. Medvedev went up to the net and brought his racket forward with full force five times, breaking his equipment while shattering a small black camera and sending pieces of it flying. That earned a code violation warning from the chair umpire for racket abuse.

Paris Olympic medals lose their shine

The French mint told The Associated Press on Tuesday that it’s replacing a number of medals from the 2024 Paris Games and Paralympics after athletes complained that they have already deteriorated — with some posting pictures on social media. The Monnaie de Paris declined to say how many medals have been returned, but French website La Lettre put the number at over 100. The French Olympic committee and the IOC also wouldn’t reveal figures. In total, the French mint produced 5,084 medals for the Games. Parisian jewelry house Chaumet designed the medals, which were part of the Games’ lasting legacy. A hexagonal, polished chunk of iron taken from the iconic Eiffel Tower was embedded in each gold, silver and bronze medal. But concerns about their quality emerged before the Games had even ended last summer when American skateboarder Nyjah Huston posted a video showing how quickly his bronze medal had deteriorated. Many other athletes have since also complained. The iron pieces embedded in the center of the Olympic medals each weigh about two-thirds of an ounce. They were cut from girders and other bits that were swapped out of the Eiffel Tower during renovations and stored for safekeeping. —AP